While agrochemicals have raised agricultural productivity levels, the excessive and inappropriate use of agrochemicals, such pesticides, can result in negative and sometimes irreparable effects on soil health and the environment. As such, farmers and consumers are now in search of safe, secure, and sustainable alternatives to agrochemicals that would provide safe and high productivity levels without harm to the environment. Among such approaches that are a focus of ongoing research in the agricultural sector is the use of biological control agents, also referred to as bioprotectants. A key focus of research in the area of bioprotectants is the identification, development, and manipulation of unique combinations of biological organism and/or their metabolites in order to achieve desired product profiles, e.g., unique antipathogen profiles.
Exemplary plant bioprotectants include, but are not limited to, compositions based on bacteria (i.e., Mycostop, Galltroll-A, Companion, Serenade, Kodiak, and Deny), fungi (i.e., RootShield, SoilGard, Trichodex, and AQ10), and insects. These bioprotectants may act via a single- or multi-mode of action including competition, antagonism, antibiosis, stimulation of plant systemic resistance reactions, and attack and consumption of fungal resting structures. Plant bioprotectants are used to treat crops in a commercial setting, in part, due to their ability improve antifungal, antiviral, and/or antibacterial activity.
Despite advances in the development of bioprotectants, there remains a need for compositions and methods that can perform plant bioprotection, e.g., protection of plants from plant microbial pathogens, while reducing the use of agrochemicals. These needs and other needs are addressed by the present disclosure.